TAKING CENTRE STAGE

Antonella Vicini

It is time to take center stage…

For the longest time I have wanted and chosen to be behind the scenes: organizing, writing, creating space for other people to feel at ease with themselves and me. I have never wanted to be in the limelight, somehow refusing to appear to be in charge. Recently, I watched a tv show on dance, where some would be choreographers were asked to dance with their groups. Some didn’t like the idea, some were always center stage. At first their “central” attitude bothered me, then I realized that this was my main issue: not wanting that responsibility.

I know this is a time of deep transformation for me, so I need to be patient while the new me emerges into the butterfly ready to fly into a new life. Even if I am not a young woman now, life is still full of surprises, nothing stands in the way of me living a great life. The only real obstacle, as ever, is inside: it’s me!

If I get out of my way, then reaching and living the life I want is possible, it is real, it is here and now.

How many times in our lives do we get a chance to consciously go through a metamorphosis and be the whole of who we are?

Mentally, I can answer as many as we can imagine.

Emotionally, perhaps not so many (please) because sometimes they may hurt.

Physically, as many as we apply ourselves whole-heartedly.

Spiritually, it happens all the time, because it is an ongoing process.

While mental and spiritual evolution is welcome and finds me open and willing; the emotional part has been draining at times, with unexpected highs and lows; physically is perhaps the hardest for me to face, especially after a very long neglect.

Nevertheless, Alea iacta est*, it is time for action, to take risks, a time of having to face my fears and failures, as well as my joys and successes.

It is time to take center stage in my life, taking responsibility for myself fully, whatever the outcome.

The first image, in the previous page, was a great inspiration for this article: this is my initial position, all closed in, holding onto past and present, nothing is open to the world, and it can be fascinating, remaining forever captive of a life I already know.

The colors of the emotions are so intense and saturated, like the feelings that accompany them, the lines form a tight prison from which nothing can escape. All the defenses have been erected with care, with long preparation, almost with love, but they are now suffocating the soul they were supposed to protect from pain. This is the unbearable quandary now.

It is time to take flight and be something different from before, hence the message from the second photo on the next page: a butterfly is sucking the sweetness of life from a flower with delicate and tender colors like the spring that generated it.

This is how I feel: finally enjoying life in all its small details and big events. Life is sweet regardless of my circumstances, for which I take full responsibility.

The last image in the next page invites a different reflection: this is the future, one of the new possible shapes that my life may take, there is beauty, harmony, a hard core of strength and determination, the tenderness of petals and the transparency of being constantly and consciously under the light of spirit.

There are still some moments of disbelief that I can actually reach such a future, but every little step in that direction leads me closer to my goal, even if I cannot know the how and the exact aspect of my future. Along the way I have learnt to be patient, to let go of control, so that I can enjoy how the universe is going to support me no matter what.

It is a journey worth taking and continuing all the way!

With affection for all my fellow travelers across the universe.

Antonella Vicini

Photos Robert Doppler

NOTE: *Alea in Latin were the dice, so the literal meaning of the entire sentence was : the dice have been cast, but the actual significance was in the word, that also means risk, if I take a risk I will bear its consequences as well.